Victoria 3 – The Great Qing Tips

The Great Qing Dynasty

I’ve been playing Qing exclusively so far with restarting runs as I learn more & more & think of different strategies to test. Yesterday I got the latest into a game into the 1870s (I’m not looking to complete a 1936 game as I deliberately test & learn).

I’m sure there are several ways to play Qing, what I’m away to type is not ‘the way how dare you not do this’ but this has worked for me so far:

• Adjacent land markets require 0 convoys, this makes a big market like Russia really nice to trade with while you use your convoys on tea & silk to Britain from the start of the game (these two exports will take all your convoys anyway, that’s how profitable they are).
• You start with a level 4 tools factory in Beijing, switch your lumber industry to level 2 production method to fix your deficit as you do the following point:
• You start with so little construction sectors that you are still in the green with using them all, yet the more of them you build the more lumber you need to get the most construction out of them. Start by building construction sectors until you can produce 2-3 at once then build one lumber mill all the time to keep lumber cheap. Stop building construction sectors when you just step into the white of budget. Low white allows healthy growth that isn’t too quick to cause problems in the medium-long term.
• You can build more construction sectors as you economy grows into the green.
• Consumption tax luxury goods, maybe one higher level of actual taxation to keep building construction sectors & lumber mills for faster growth.
• Tea & Tobacco plantations out the wazoo. Until the predictive profit for tobacco has gone.
• Continue building tea plantations while you now build industry (tooling workshop, one food factory, etc etc). Also start your domestic arms industry now.
• When I typed tea & tobacco plantations out he wazoo I aint saying ignore opium, banana & even two cotton plantations you may build for profit, of course make profit on them as well, but it’s about where most money lies.
• You have two states with bonus to agriculture production, one by Chongqing I can’t remember the name of currently & the other is Shanxi. Make use of these bonuses.
• You may ban opium in the 1840s & have it be ignored by Britain. Not saying this is a 100% guarantee, but the later it is, probably because you’ve grown your own opium industry, Britain really doesn’t seem to care. I think it’s worth tolerating the crisis for 4-10 years over being a punching bag.
• You now get to decide when to make a diplo play against a great power to become recognised. Obvious modernise your army first. There’s nothing wrong playing Qing into the 1850’s still unrecognised.
• Do not attempt to improve government administration until a) paper shortage fixed, & b) for 2-3 decades, it is better to increase GDP directly with current tax capacity despite the penalties. A good time to start thinking of expanding government admin is when expanding agriculture lacks projected profits.